The European Parliament passed a resolution April 26 criticizing government-sponsored legislation in Poland that would ban discussion of gay topics in schools and punish teachers and principals who violate the proposed law with firing and a fine or jail time. The vote was 325 to 124 with 150 abstentions.

“These kinds of people cannot work with children,” Polish Deputy Minister of Education Miroslaw Orzechowski told local radio in March. “These activities need to be acted upon … before it’s too late to make a difference.”

Minister of Education and Deputy Prime Minister Roman Giertych also has spoken in favor of the legislation, saying: “Homosexual propaganda must … be limited so children will have the correct view of the family. … If we will not use all our power to strengthen the family, then as a continent there is no future for us. We will be a continent settled by representatives of the Islamic world who care for the family.”

The Euro resolution also calls for a gay fact-finding mission to be sent to Poland, for worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality, and for the European Commission to launch court actions against European Union member states that breach EU obligations.

Following the parliament’s vote, Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski claimed that “nobody is limiting gay rights in Poland.”

But he added: “If we’re talking about not having homosexual propaganda in Polish schools, I fully agree with those who feel this way. Such propaganda should not be in schools; it definitely doesn’t serve youth well. It’s not in the interest of any society to increase the number of homosexuals – that’s obvious.”

Kaczynski previously has called gays “perverse,” and his twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski, has warned that if homosexuality “were to be promoted on a grand scale, the human race would disappear.”

In response to the Euro resolution, Patricia Prendiville, executive director of the European branch of the International Lesbian and Gay Association, said, “Homophobia is, unfortunately, alive and well across Europe, and the firm stance of the European Parliament is crucial for furthering the fight against discrimination and prejudice which LGBT people in Europe face on a daily basis.”

University of Manchester academic Hal Gladfelder has discovered pro-gay writings from 1749 in the National Archives in Kew, England.

The five-foot-long handwritten scroll is a legal indictment of the printer of a book by Thomas Cannon called Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify’d.

The book – which contained stories and philosophical texts in defense of male homosexuality – disappeared immediately after it was published, but the indictment reproduces many passages from it.

One surviving extract states: “Unnatural desire is a contradiction in terms; downright nonsense. Desire is an amatory impulse of the inmost human parts.”

Gladfelder said the book “must be the first substantial treatment of homosexuality ever in English. The only other discussions of homosexuality were contained in violently moralistic and homophobic attacks or in trial reports for the crime of sodomy up to and beyond 1750.”

Gladfelder “came across the scroll in a box of uncatalogued legal documents from 1750.”

“[T]he 18th-century courts – who were trying to suppress this – unwittingly helped publicize it 258 years later,” he said.

Little is known about Cannon, but Gladfelder said he had to leave England to avoid indictment.

“Interestingly, his father was dean of Lincoln Cathedral and his grandfather was bishop of Norwich and Ely,” he said.

“It’s a fair assumption that Cannon was writing for a gay subculture at the time,” Gladfelder added. “Though he lived in anonymity – possibly because of the notoriety of his pamphlet – I certainly regard him as a martyr. His life has many parallels with Oscar Wilde, who was persecuted by the law, forced into exile, and effectively silenced for being an apologist and advocate of same-sex love.”

Pride didn’t go well in Moldova for the third year in a row.

Authorities in the capital, Chisinau, banned all public Pride activities again, despite a Supreme Court ruling that last year’s ban was illegal.

The city says Pride events threaten public order, offend Christian values and promote sexual propaganda.

Despite the ban, gay activists attempted to lay flowers April 27 at a monument to victims of repression. They were stopped by police, who said a permit was required for the action.

The flowers were then deposited at the officers’ feet, said Boris Balanetkii, head of the Pride organizing group GenderDoc-M.

“Police [said] GenderDoc-M has to have official permission of the City Hall to hold this event, [but] later a representative of City Hall commented in an interview … that the actions of the police were not correct and in order to lay flowers there is no need for any permission,” Balanetkii said.

Later in the day, about 20 activists went to City Hall and stood in front of it for 15 minutes with their mouths taped shut with rainbow stickers. Police allowed the protest and protected the activists from about 30 counter demonstrators from an extremist youth organization, Balanetkii said.

“This event showed that the public disorder, of which the members of the City Hall [are] so afraid, did not take place, and the majority of the people who were witnesses of the event were peaceful,” Balanetkii said.

“We consider it was the first small victory in the fight of the LGBT community for the freedom of assembly in Moldova. [We will] do our best that next year a public manifestation of the LGBT community will take place not only as protest action but as a Pride parade.”

Activists from the Netherlands, Sweden (including Member of the European Parliament Maria Carlshamre), Romania, Canada and Ukraine traveled to Chisinau to participate in the Pride activities, which also included cultural events, concerts, forums, a soccer match and the Moldovan premiere of The Vagina Monologues.

Assistance: Bill Kelley